Spread the Net organizers from Memorial's School of Nursing and the Centre for Nursing Studies are hoping to capture first place in the college/university category, with some yummy fundraisers planned in the lead up to Valentine's Day!

With a bake sale on February 5th, a valentine's sale and a ticket sale on a $100 gift card from Portobello's Restaurant, members of the organizing team are optomistic they can get to first place.

The team is currently second among 16 university/college teams in Canada for the amount of money raised to date in a challenge issued every year by Spread the Net, the charity launched several years ago by Rick Mercer and Belinda Stronach.

“We currently have just over $2000 and if we ‘win’ the challenge when it closes at the end of February, we are supposed to get a visit from Rick Mercer himself!! Now wouldn't that be exciting,” said Sarah Whalen, a fourth-year nursing student who organized the campaign as part of her course work in Dr. Sandra MacDonald’s course on complex care.

“Let’s see if we can get to number one,” said Sarah. “We are a generous community and I’m sure we can do it!”

The team in first place has collected about $4,000 in donations, with several other teams nipping at Memorial’s heels.

The national Spread the Net campaign issues a challenge every year to students across Canada encouraging a little friendly competition that could earn the winning team a visit from Rick Mercer, the host of CBC’s Rick Mercer Report.

Last fall nursing students launched Spread the Net to help end malaria deaths in Africa, and starting out they had a modest goal – to raise $1,000.

But nursing students have more than surpassed the amount they had hoped to raise for the campaign that provides insecticidal mosquito nets to families in Africa.

“We have raised money through a couple of bake sales, a coin drive, our Christmas card campaign and lots of personal donations,” said Sarah. “I am quite surprised by how much we have raised, and I think this shows how generous people are, especially for good causes! It's great to know that people truly realize there are so many issues in the world that we can have an impact on!

“This is wonderful news,” said Dr. MacDonald who encouraged Sarah and her fellow students to take up the cause. “It’s so important that students see they can make a difference in people’s lives.”

It’s the second time in recent years that the Memorial community has taken up the cause to help end malaria deaths. Back in 2008 students at Grenfell Campus raised just over $3,000 for Spread the Net.